Forms of Humor Created through Maxim of Manner Flouting
In the middle of masturbating, Nadal calls Aladeen. However, he does not explain what is he doing briefly and he uses ambiguous words to explain it. Thus,
he flouts maxim of manner. He uses words that have a second meaning which is relate to a sexual
matter or usually called as double entendres. For example, „bilbul‟ for penis that
actually means one of bird families and „labeneh‟ an Arabic language that actually
means cream cheese that refers to sperm. Another example of double entendres is shown in Datum 37 below.
Nadal : What are you doing?
Aladeen :
I’m in the Lincoln Tunnel.
Datum 37 Aladeen helps one of the customers who is in labor. When his hand that
brings cell phone is in her vagina, Nadal calls him and asks about what he is doing. Aladeen answers it obscurely by saying that he is in the Lincoln Tunnel,
which for him means as vagina. Thus, Aladeen flouts maxim of manner for being obscure.
The Lincoln Tunnel is a set of three tunnels that is located in New York City. In this dialogue, Aladeen creates the second meaning of the Lincoln Tunnel
which is vagina. The second interpretatio n of „the Lincoln Tunnel‟ is related to a
sexual matter. Thus, this kind of humor is categorized as double entendres.
2 Pun
Pun is playing with a word. It evokes a second meaning of the word, based on a homophone: a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs
in meaning. Datum 39 is an example of pun expressed by Aladeen in
The Dictator
movie. Zoey
: You need to leave now.
Aladeen : You have broken my heart into Aladeen pieces.
Datum 39 Aladeen finally reveals his true identity. For the very first time she met
him, Zoey thinks that his name is Allison Burgers. However, Aladeen decides to tell Zoey about his real name and his position as a dictator. Zoey is very angry and
wants Aladeen to leave her alone. Aladeen feels very sad and expresses it by saying „You have broken my heart into Aladeen pieces‟. Aladeen flouts maxim of
manner because he gives ambiguous response towards Zoey‟s command. This is
the effect of Aladeen‟s policy that changes some Wadiyan words into his name. „Aladeen‟ in this utterance creates multi interpretation or has more
than one meanings , but they are pronounced the same with others „Aladeen‟ in
Wadiyan Language . It can be meant „many‟, „little‟, „small‟, etc. This kind of
humor is usually called as pun, which is usually created from words that are pronounced the same, but have different meaning.